According to the latest 10-Q, Xicor had 34 million bucks in cash and short terminvestments. At just under 20 million shares, that relates to $1.70 per sharein cold hard cash! If this stock drops much lower, it'll be worth buying just forthe money in the cash register, for goodness sakes. Mgmt has made a bold move - increased inventory to protect from the stock outsituation that bit them in 1996-97. If the plan works for q4, the earnings will go thruthe roof. If not, it'll be languish city again. What a spot to be in. Jump back in or wait?Technical Analysis isn't showing squat yet. And from a multi-year chart, this onecould go back into the two's. Ugly. But interesting. Ken

New low. Quite amazing. Pretty soon we will be down to a market cap of 1/2 of sales. My equanimity has something to do with my small caps being a set small percentage of my overall portfolio, plus the fact that some of my small caps are actually doing well, plus the good fortune of having IBM, NOB, USB, CP, LU, and (now one can admit it it) T as long term core large cap holdings. So I can watch Xico with some detatchment. But the money in Xico surehas been dead in the water for many years. Being a holder of both Xico (and Aapl) at least keeps me from ever being overconfident about anything in the investing arena.

I am amazed at your equanimity. Ten years ago the stock was over $10 and the Dow at 2,000. For it to have only kept pace with the Dow, it should now be at $40, instead of $4. Minus roughly 60% in ten years means, in my book, a mgmt that should have long since been fired.

I still hold alot (for my level of investing) of this stock also. I do think we are protected here on the downside a little and I'm not going to panic to dump it here. IBD relative strength is at 3%. That is incredible for a technology company with a PE of 10 that has products on the little Martian land rover. Selling to avoid the losses doesn't help once the losses have already happened. I wish I had lightened up at 14 a year ago May but I was a true believer at that time. The main problem is that this is not a growth company. It's revenues are quite static and any increase in unit sales always seems to be balanced by price erosion. And more and more R and D dollars are necessary to keep up with the treadmill. The same psychology that was tempting me to buy more at 14 in May of 96 (fortunately I didn't) is pushing me to dump it all here. I think both of these moves would be wrong. I'm keeping on my plan of unloading 20% of my XICO holdings each quarter for the next 5 quarters, hopefully at a little price surge each time. Then if we are all wrong and the story changes and the revenues go to 40 million/quarter and higher (and if Santa Claus is real) then I'll participate in the run-up and I won't have to shoot myself watching it all happen after I've bailed out. (Particularly since I've been it it over 10 years).

Insider Watch -- Buying: Xicor Inc. (XICO) Semiconductors Shares of Xicor have dropped nearly 70% since September to trade near $2.50, and insiders are accumulating shares at the lower prices. From February 2 to February 6, two executives acquired 15,000 shares through an options exercise and an open-market purchase at $2.81 per share. In his first buy since initially filing in '96, Officer Bruce Gray bought 10,000 shares.

The SI board has a lot of info on Xicor....They claimthe CEO Raphael has turn the company over to a "BruceGray"...but Raphael still owns 500,000 + shares...so hehas hope on the company turnaround by the new leadership....